Splinter
by GeoFount
Summary: OrihimeRyuuken, OrihimeIshida, OrihimeIchigo : When life ceases to be a fairytale. : Oneshot.
1. Chapter 1

**Written for the January round of Bleach flashfic on LJ but I didn't finish it on time and it proceeded to explode until it turned into this.**

**Orihime is my fandom bicycle yes, yes?**

* * *

Once, when Orihime had been a little girl, she had gotten a splinter lodged in her foot. It hadn't hurt terribly and it hadn't been much of an inconvenience but she couldn't help but pick at it, tearing away skin, until she had managed to dislodge it. 

Her brother scolded her for it later, telling her that it would have worked its way out when her body was ready for it to be out.

Regardless, Orihime is secretly glad, even though the wound she had created hurt more than the splinter did.

* * *

He had been the only one to die.

Despite the fact she isn't fighting and is off in the background, Aizen targets her. He has always targeted her, ever since he had first become aware of her powers, and the fierce battle he was caught up in didn't change that.

She hadn't seen the blast coming for her, so wrapped up in healing the many wounded was she, and by the time she had realized it was too late.

When the blast doesn't hit her, when she knows she has been saved, she opens her eyes, expecting to see a tattered black cloak in front of her. She sees a white one instead.

Ishida's blood drops like molten rubies into the sand. "I'm sorry," he says, looking at her, and Orihime thinks he is talking to her. His eyes glass over. "Father."

Orihime never did find out who exactly he was apologizing to.

There wasn't anything left to bring back. Aizen had destroyed every last bit of him.

"I can't bring him back," Orihime chokes. "Without a body I don't know how to bring him back."

She dissolves into tears. Everyone tells her that it's okay, that it's not her fault, that she couldn't have done anything else.

Orihime wishes she could believe them.

When Ichigo touches her arm, she looks at him. The mask he had worn to defeat Aizen leers back at her. Orihime finds that she hates it.

He says her name but nothing else. He has never been any good at comforting. He has only been good for fighting.

She doesn't say anything back either. She doesn't have the heart to.

* * *

She had saved many. Across the blood red sand, Orihime had sent out her power in a wide arc, not bothering to determine if those she was trying to heal were already dead or not. Many that should have died returned to Soul Society completely whole and unharmed.

Ukitake thanks Orihime for all her help. When she bursts into tears at his words, he is dumbfounded and apologizes profusely.

Orihime accepts his apology, because that's the kind of person she is, but in the back of her mind she knows she should be the one asking for forgiveness.

* * *

"For me," she says as they make their way home. "Why for me?"

"He wanted to rescue you. You were his friend. He cared for you. We all do. That's why we came."

"No one should die for me."

A beat. Then, "I thought the very same thing while sitting inside that tower."

The only difference is nobody _did_ dieat that time. She couldn't save him, one of her greatest friends, and that's the part that kills Orihime the most.

In the end, she had been even more useless than Urahara had claimed.

* * *

When they are back in the city, in the street, they say, "He died a warrior's death. He died honorably following what he believed is right. He would have wanted it that way."

Orihime bites her tongue, for their sake. She swallows her words of sorrow and anger until they are a black lump weighing deep inside her stomach.

She wants them to blame her. She wants them to hate her but because they don't, it makes her feel all the worse. In some twisted way, because they don't blame her, she feels like she is guiltier all the more.

* * *

The battle is over and done. They can go back to their lives, go back to the _was _and _then_, and pretend like what they had been through had never happened. It all seemed so useless in the end really. Nobody _knew _what had happened, save them, and it is hard to look back and imagine any of it had happened. Harder still because she knew it was real.

Orihime tries to pick up the pieces. Tries to piece back the puzzle that was her life before that fateful day her brother came after her. Before she discovered what she was and what she could do.

Orihime also tries to forget about her powers, that supposed gift.

* * *

She tries to be a normal teenager. A normal teenager who doesn't know about shinigami, or grand adventures, or unrequited love, or death and loss and heartache. Someone who doesn't know what it's like to lose and lose and lose.

There is an empty seat in the classroom this year.

Orihime thinks it will be so hard, oh so hard, to hear everyone wonder where Ishida has gone.

It is even worse when nobody notices at all.

* * *

It should have been Ichigo. It should have been Ichigo to leap in the way, to take the blast that was meant for her. He should have loved her enough for that.

That's how it plays out in her mind and Orihime hates herself all the more for thinking like that.

* * *

Weeks go by and slowly she feels herself disconnecting. She can no longer feel the attachment she once had with the other girls. They just _don't know._

Orihime fakes smiles, fakes listening, fakes everything. It is strange to her that a year ago she had been an airhead, able to laugh at nothing and never connect anything. Now she has faced the world and experienced all its dark corners and ugly faces. She knows the deep dark truth of sacrifice and survival.

She knows what its like to survive.

She is quieter than ever.

* * *

"You don't seem like yourself anymore," says Tatsuki.

"I don't _feel _like myself anymore."

* * *

She had always pictured that each one of her companions brought a piece to their little group that made it a whole. Ichigo had been the power, Rukia the experience, Chad the stability, Ishida the brains, and she had been the emotion.

She made decisions based on what her heart told her to and didn't think about consequences. This got her into trouble sometimes, as some of the things she did was right but not necessarily smart.

Ishida had always been the one in their group to make sense of things. He had always made decisions with his head and not his heart. He had weighed consequences before acting and decided thereupon whether the consequences were worth it. This had gotten him into a lot of trouble too, because he valued others lives over his own and the consequence of losing his life compared to somebody's else was always worth it.

This is why he had died of course. He knew what stepping in front of her had meant. He had done it anyway.

She feels like an animal trapped inside a cage. She wants to rage and rage but instead she stands quietly, folding her regrets and her heartache like so many pieces of paper until they are a little tiny square she can hide under her heart.

"I'm sorry," she wants to say to them. Can't. "I'm so sorry for what I took away from you."

Even if she did say it, it wouldn't matter. Most wouldn't understand what she is talking about and the others wouldn't listen anyway.

* * *

Under the weight of her own armor, she is drowning. With all her guilt, all her defenses (for their sake and hers), she is drowning and she is unable to remove it to save herself.

She looks to Ichigo for help, for comfort, for _something._

But he can't even look her in the eye anymore.

* * *

Chad can't help her either. He is too quiet, too stable, too unemotional to understand or comprehend.

Ishida, she knows, would have been able to understand. He would have looked at it with all his intensity, all his emotion, all his intelligence, like he used to do with everything else. Ishida could have helped her.

But he is gone, gone and over, and it's all her fault.

* * *

"I don't think I'll be going to school tomorrow."

"Why not? Do you not feel well?"

"…Something like that."

* * *

There are more school days and more.

"Do you still not feel well?"

"I don't."

* * *

And more.

"You're going to fail your class," Tatsuki warns.

"I don't care."

"_What _is wrong with you?" Tatsuki's voice rises in desperation. "_Why _are you like this?"

Orihime looks at her. She could say all sorts of things, explain everything, make her see. But Orihime knows Tatsuki would only feel sorry for _her_ and that only makes Orihime feel worse.

"Nothings wrong," she says. "Nothing at all."

* * *

There is a splinter wedged deep inside Orihime's heart. Inside it, it holds all the memories, all the guilt, all the frustration in herself and what she was unable to do. Inside it she holds Ishida.

She knows that in time, perhaps, it would work itself out and barely leave behind anything but a small scar.

But then, Orihime was never very good with letting things lie.


	2. Chapter 2

When she sees him for the first time, it is inside the white polished halls of the hospital, and she pretends she is looking for the washroom when the girl at the front desk asks what she needs.

If he saw her she wasn't sure, but she waits, unsure and indecisive as to what action she should take now that she has found him, until he disappears behind a door.

Why she goes after him she isn't sure. She just feels like she needs to.

By the time she gets home she is shaking, though she can't understand why.

* * *

There are more days when she goes back to the hospital. Always she keeps her distance, waiting, waiting, and watching.

He has never taken any interest in her and probably hasn't even noticed her. He is too busy in his work, in his clipboard, in the turning of the knob to enter another sickly person's room.

By the second day she decides that he's handsome. On the third day she notices he pushes his glasses onto his nose just like Ishida used to do. And on the fourth day she witnesses him refuse a patient away without a single expression crossing his stoic face.

He is everything and nothing like Ishida.

* * *

On the fifth day, Orihime gets tired of waiting.

* * *

It is raining when she gets to his door. It occurs to her briefly that when it rains it is generally a precursor for trouble. She can only hope so.

When he answers the door, he doesn't open it all the way but rather glares at her through the slit. After a moment, he says, "I know you. You're that girl that's been hanging around the hospital for the last few days."

Orihime is surprised by this. She wrings her hands in her skirt.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know," she confesses. "But I think you're the one that can give it to me."

There are several tense seconds that tick by as he stares at her. She is soaked through but he still hasn't moved the door an inch.

"Who are you?" he asks finally.

"I'm your son's murderer."

He slams the door in her face.

* * *

She doesn't go back until the next day. It isn't raining this time but the day is cloudy and gray. There is a melancholy weight in the air, but maybe that was just the weight Orihime felt.

When he opens the door, he glares then steps back. He doesn't invite her in but the open door is as good an invitation as she's ever going to get. She closes the door softly behind her.

He is already settled into a chair when she enters the room. He wastes no time in getting to the point, which reminds her so strongly of how Ishida used to be. "What do you want?"

His tone is sharp, dangerous, not like Ishida at all. Orihime wonders vaguely what sort of people would ever want to be treated by a doctor such as he.

She looks at the window shades, a deep red, like blood. She swallows. "My name is-"

"I know who you are. You're that girl Uryuu went after. Inoue Orihime is it?"

She stares at him. "How do you know that?"

He is lighting a cigarette and through the flame and smoke he glances at her. "He wrote me a letter."

"…Ah."

"So he went to save you in Hueco Mundo did he?" He grins in an unfriendly way, a simple curve of the corner of his mouth, a grin half finished.

"Yes."

"And this is the end result." He gestures towards her, as if she is on display. "You get to come home and Uryuu got the so-called honorable warrior's death he always wanted. Tell me…how did he die?"

"He was incinerated," Orihime answers.

He breathes in the smoke. "Did he kill anybody?" he says quite suddenly.

She answers truthfully because she can not recall Ishida ever killing anyone outside of Hollows. And to her, Hollows weren't really people. "I don't know."

"He never was any good at having killing instincts," Ryuuken comments. "That was his downfall. He was much better at sacrificing himself to save others rather than sacrifice anybody else for it. Don't you think that's funny?"

"He died for my sake," says Orihime uselessly.

He grins again, that unfriendly grin, and it reminds her, strangely, of Ichigo's mask. "Is that right?"

When he leans toward her in the chair, she doesn't move, and in his glare Orihime finds hate, incrimination, resentment. Orihime finds exactly what she's been looking for.

"If you've come for forgiveness," he says, "forget it. I won't forgive you."

"…Thank you."

* * *

There are more days and she comes back. He never invites her in but he never turns her away either and in his cold allurement Orihime finds herself the most comfortable. He gives her exactly what she needs.

Sometimes they talk and when they do, he asks all the questions and she just answers. Sometimes it is about school or Soul Society. Sometimes it is about his work. But most of the time – most of the time it is abut Ishida.

He asks her about all of Ishida's grand adventures and all the foes he fought and when she tells him this, his face is distant and he listens without comment. Afterwards, he will push his glasses further onto his nose, reminding her so much of Ishida, and say, "I see." Then he will light a cigarette and he is not Ishida at all but a poor substitute.

There are other times when they will say nothing at all to each other. He will be at his desk working or in his chair reading charts and forms. At these times, Orihime is quiet and content to stare into the fire or at her lap. If she moves, his eyes follow her and into her back and calf she feels the burn of his gaze.

* * *

Why he allows her to come back everyday she isn't sure. She doesn't ask. He has never asked her why she comes either so she never offers an answer.

In their talks Ryuuken never reveals anything about himself. It is always about her or Ishida.

Neither has he ever once said that he regretted losing Ishida or that he even missed him. He only asks questions about Ishida's past; what he did, what he said, what he possibly felt. Was he powerful?

"Yes," says Orihime. "I think he was."

It's strange to her that he is so interested about this. It's almost as if Ryuuken was asking these things because he was trying to get to know the person his son was.

And maybe, Orihime thinks, that wasn't that far from the truth.

* * *

There is a picture buried underneath stacks of paper on Ryuuken's desk. Over the days Orihime has come to notice it more and more, and finally morbid curiosity gets the better of her and she unearths it. She is both disappointed and relieved to find that the picture is not of Ishida but a woman.

She shows the picture to Ryuuken. "Who is this?"

Orihime has never asked him a question before, mostly because she thought he would never answer any question of hers anyway, and he turns to regard her with a chilly apathetic expression.

She doesn't expect him to reply and it surprises her when he does. "My wife."

"Oh." Orihime blinks. She hadn't known he was married. "Where is she? Your wife."

Ryuuken leans against the windowsill across from her, hand in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette. "In another house I own."

"Huh?"

"I'm rich," he answers pointblank, giving her a sidelong glance as if she were pretending to be a simpleton. "I have more than one place of residence."

"But why…why is she there and not here? Why not here with you?"

He straightens and across his face flashes that little half finished grin. "Because she prefers being there."

And he would speak no more of it.

* * *

She finds herself staying there later and later. When she goes home, she is alone and it is dark and her mind plays tricks on her. Shadows slip by and in the silence she swears she hears the twang of a bow.

She dreams of his death but whenever he turns around, it is not Ishida but somebody else. Ichigo or her brother or Tatsuki. Once it is even herself.

Exhausted, she sprawls in Ryuuken's favorite chair, not bothering to ask permission. Ryuuken says nothing, only looks at her and she can't see his eyes but only the glare of the fire on his glasses. She gives him a wan smile.

When she wakes up the next morning, Ryuuken is gone but a blanket that was not there when she fell asleep covers her.

* * *

Staying at Ryuuken's though brings problems. In the middle of the day, when he is gone at work leaving her alone in the empty shell of a house, she finds herself getting bored and has trouble finding things to do. She tries to read the books surrounding his shelves but most of them she can't understand and the others don't sound even remotely interesting.

She looks around the rest of his home instead, telling herself she is really exploring instead of snooping.

Most of the rooms she finds are completely empty. They are nothing but void shells with white walls. Orihime wonders vaguely if once upon a time they had had his wife's belongings in them and if she had taken them with her wherever she had gone.

There is a locked door among these empty rooms. Peering through the keyhole and under the floor doesn't reveal anything about the inside of the room. She retreats to the front.

Orihime finds she hates being around that side of the house. The empty rooms make her feel as though the house is only half-alive. As if those rooms were completely lifeless.

When Ryuuken gets home, she says nothing to him about the empty rooms nor the locked one. She isn't sure if he would have told her the truth about them if she had had asked, but moreso than that Orihime doesn't want to know what sort of skeletons he hides.

* * *

They talk and again it is about Ishida.

"He liked to sew a great deal," she tells him. "He was in the sewing club at school."

Ryuuken snorts belittlingly. "Women's work."

"I don't think so. I think he liked to repair things. I think he liked putting stuff back together, especially broken things."

This seems to disturb Ryuuken the most. His eyes narrow just a little and his mouth becomes firmer than usual.

Orihime knows better than to ask him to explain. Her gut tells her he wouldn't answer and although he had answered her about his wife, she knows better than to think he would ever answer anything about Ishida.

* * *

Later, he says abruptly to her, "It's funny you should say that."

Orihime glances up from the book she doesn't understand. "What's that?"

"About him wishing to fix broken things."

The fact he doesn't say Ishida's name is not lost on Orihime. "Is that funny?""He didn't fix anything," Ryuuken responds. "And if he did, it was meaningless things. Clothes, toys…meaningless things. That was always Uryuu's problem, you see. He always missed the big picture."

"What is the big picture?"

Ryuuken stares at her for a long moment. Then he pushes his glasses further onto his nose and walks away without answering.

* * *

At night, from down the hall, there is a light. It shines on her face and Orihime, restless with dreams but not nightmares, blinks awake. Groggily she peers at it.

It is coming from the other side of the house. The side that is full of empty lifeless rooms and hidden memories.

She rises out of Ryuuken's chair. Careful not to make a sound, she makes her way down the hallway.

The light, she finds, is coming from the room that had been locked. She pauses a moment nervously at the threshold, wondering if there was a Hollow inside Ryuuken's house or, worse, Ishida's ghost.

But Orihime had never been much of a coward. She had never been afraid of fighting, only of hurting others. Bolstering her courage, she forces herself to enter.

The sight that greets her makes her stop in shock.

This room is not like the others. It is not a hollow, barren shell but a room full of light and life.

Around the room there are balls of thread and needles, ribbons rolled into perfect circles, clothes carefully folded with obvious holes in the midst of being mended, stuffed animals with ears and eyes sewn back on all lined up together in a flawless row. And then there are bows and arrows, white gloves, books with strange symbols upon their spines, foreign objects she has never seen before that appear handmade but finely crafted.

Orihime stands very still and inside her breast she feels her heart clench painfully.

From the sewing materials to the broken items made whole, from the belongings befitting a Quincy to the simple orderly fashion everything is put in. It is every piece that Ishida had been. It is Ishida's life laid out before her.

A movement to her left breaks her out of her appraisel. She turns. Her eyes widen.

Ryuuken is sitting on Ishida's bed. And just beyond him, on the nightstand, she can see a picture of an old man.

"I didn't think you would come," Ryuuken doesn't look at her when he speaks, evidently preferring to glare at the wall with that somber gaze of his. "Most wouldn't have."

"This is…"

"Uryuu's room," Ryuuken finishes for her. "Yes."

In his hands she sees there is a necklace with a cross shaped charm and a circle at its crosshatch. The pendant swings from his fingers.

Orihime makes a sidelong glance towards the picture. "Is that…"

"Uryuu's grandfather." He leans back. The swinging stops. "My father."

"Oh…" Forcefully she swallows the jumbled mass of questions in her throat. "He mentioned him a couple times," she says instead. "His grandfather. Err your father that is."

"Uryuu loved him very much."

The swinging starts again. A pendulum next to his knee. Orihime can't help but find her eyes drawn to it. Slowly, as if moving through water, she moves to kneel in front of him. Her eyes never move from the swinging object. Ryuuken never removes his eyes from the wall either.

"Uryuu loved him, but I hated him," he continues. "The old man convinced him that being a Quincy was the most important thing in the world. Uryuu never bothered to consider if being a Quincy would pay the bills, give him the clothes on his back, or keep a roof over his head. He never took into account the big picture. He wanted the useless things in life."

The pendulum stops. Orihime pulls her eyes upward to Ryuuken's face. He isn't looking at her but at the far wall. When he speaks, his mouth barely moves.

"When I was young, we lived in poverty. My father was too busy taking care of the world to take care of us. I had to be the one to work, to make sure we had a house and food and all those others things that are needed to live in today's world. My father told me the same thing he told Uryuu. I too became a Quincy but it didn't make me happy. I thought that it was because I was missing something, and we were missing money. That is why I chose a profession that would make me rich but I also chose it because I would be helping people. My father helped the living by killing the dead. I decided to help the living by keeping them alive. My father told me I was being selfish. I told him he wasn't living in the present."

That half finished grin crosses his face. There is a slight snort of ironic bitter laughter.

"It was then I decided that my son would have everything I didn't have. I gave him a vast amount of wealth. I gave him all the money he could ask for, a roof over his head, clothes, food, every damn thing he wanted. I gave him everything."

Ryuuken falls silent a moment. He glances at the picture.

"I spent my whole life measuring up," he mutters. "It was the way I had been raised. It was the only way I knew. I wanted Uryuu to be like me, I pushed him to be like me, just like my father did to me. I gave everything to Uryuu but everything was too much because he didn't want everything. Money didn't make him happy. Being a Quincy made him happy. He wanted to be like the old man. I despised it and Uryuu despised me for despising it. We could never see eye to eye. He would yell and cry at me when he was a boy. When he became a man, we both became two men in a silent warfare."

His eyes move from the wall to her. He leans towards her. His breath is hot against her face, like a lion's pant down her neck. He is so close she can smell his breath. He smells of smoke and alcohol and shattered things.

Orihime barely manages to stop herself from scooting backwards.

"You came here asking for forgiveness," he says directly into her face, "but I won't give it to you. How can I grant you forgiveness when the same mercy was always denied to me? I won't forgive you because I can't be forgiven. You robbed me of that."

His hand curls into a fist around the necklace. He stands and from her submissive position on the floor, Orihime looks back at him with wide eyes.

Her thighs clench as her heart races and she almost sobs with relief when he leaves without another word.

* * *

She knows better than to go after him. She is well aware he is not the type to be coddled and comforted. Chasing him down would suffice in nothing.

Instead she stays in the room, surrounded by Ishida's life, and thinks again and again on what Ryuuken had said.

Ryuuken, Orihime now understands, did everything by halves. His grins were always half finished, his house was half empty. He had been half a Quincy, half a doctor, half a husband, half a father and maybe in the end he had become half a man.

She didn't blame him for not forgiving her. How could one give such a thing out of their own hollowness? How could the guilty possibly forgive the guilty?

Orihime fingers the white glove Ishida had worn in her hands. She remembers all the words Ishida had said about his father to her, so few and far between.

She raises her head at last.

Ishida had always weighed consequences before acting. This is why he had been the thinker of their group. He could always fit pieces together no matter how obscure. He had always been able to complete any puzzle.

So maybe he had known what would happen the moment he jumped in front of her. Maybe he knew what she would feel, what she would do, and where she would go. Maybe he knew all these things. Maybe he had planned ahead in that split second before jumping and had decided everything was worth it.

Orihime stands. Softly she folds the glove in her hand. She kisses it and sets it gently down on the bed.

"Thank you," she says, means it. "I'm so sorry."

She takes a moment to collect herself. Wipes away the stray tear that trickles down her cheek.

Then she goes to find Ryuuken.

* * *

She finds him where she knew he would be. In front of the fire in his usual chair, the blanket at his feet, with a glass of scotch in his hand.

She stops defiantly in front of him. "I came to tell you," she says without preamble, "what Ishida's last words were before he died."

Ryuuken blinks once slowly and his glare turns accusingly to her. "You never mentioned that before."

"You never asked," says Orihime, as if that explained it all. And to her, it did.

"Very well." Ryuuken's words are slow, measured, like Ishida's had been when he had faced down a foe that might be beyond his power. "Humor me then. What did he say?"

Orihime takes a deep breath. "He said he was sorry."

"Of course he was. Sorry for what?"

"I don't know," Orihime confesses. "I don't know what he was sorry for. But right after that he said father."

Ryuuken stiffens in his chair. He stares into the fire. Across his glasses she can see the shadows race and it is a long moment before he starts breathing again.

He stands slowly. For the third time, he walks away from her but, this time, his steps are shaky.

* * *

She waits for him.

The hours crawl by without a sound. He stays in his room, barricading himself away with only his guilt for company. It reminds her of what she had done before she came here. She sees not a flicker of him.

It is only when, exhausted, she slides into his chair and curls there, half-asleep, that he comes for her.

He is a shadow in the darkness that she doesn't recognize. For a stunned incoherent second she thinks he is a Hollow. Then he leans toward her and she smells the smoke and alcohol and knows it is he.

He holds her face in his hands. Against her forehead he leans his own and across her cheeks she feels his breath. It brushes like a murmur across her lips.

"I forgive you," he whispers.

His hands tighten a fraction against her flesh. Then he kisses her, hot and heavy, and from his chair she rises, presses herself against him, needy needy for what he offers.

He gives it to her soundlessly.

* * *

Ryuuken had been half a father, half a husband, and half a man.

But to Orihime, he was a full lover.

* * *

When she dreams, she dreams of Ishida.

But this time it is not about his death. He stands before her, as whole and bright as the day before he died and, in his hands, he holds something she recognizes very well.

Her own heart.

Once upon a time there had been a splinter inside there. But she had torn so viciously at it that she finally managed to dislodge it, leaving behind a huge gaping wound.

Ishida, very slowly, takes his needle and thread and, very gently, sews her heart back together.

"I love you."

He smiles at her, a full brilliant smile, like he's happy, and inside her breast Orihime feels her heart swell to the point of breaking.

* * *

It is late morning by the time she wakes. Orihime stares at the ceiling and knows that he – Ryuuken, not Ishida, she thinks at first but then, in retrospect, both - is gone.

The front door has been left open. She understands what it means. It is his silent invitation for her to leave.

Slowly, she sits up. Against her flesh the air is cold but she doesn't reach for her clothes just yet. She stares into her lap and silently reconstructs the bits and pieces of the past few months of her tumult life. From the day she had discovered her secret abilities to the day she had returned back from hell with a friend lost, she rewinds her life backwards and remembers the simple innocent girl she used to be.

Time froze, and while it stood statuelike before her, carved out of a chilling introspection, she is able to cast away the last of the tattered remains that had been her old life, that innocence of being that had preceded Rukia and her journey through Hueco Muendo, and to don at last the mantle of the woman she had become.

_Good-bye Orihime that was._

Quietly, almost melancholy, Orihime rises and prepares to go home at last.

* * *

**A/N: I have to come clean. The last couple paragraphs were stolen shamelessly from "The Elf Queen of Shannara" by Terry Brooks. It's a great book, everyone should read it. The words fit into this so well I had to steal them. I'm a bad, bad author.**


	3. Chapter 3

Orihime couldn't say she was full of regrets. What she had experienced, the wonderful people she had met, she would not give up for the world. There was remorse but she had come to learn that there always would be remorse with everything.

No longer could she view the world through the eye's of a fairytale enthused girl who believed in truly happy endings. No longer was she the girl overwhelmed and fraught with emotion. Under Ryuuken's hands, he had carved her into a woman filled with clear understanding and capability. Now, she could look at things with an adult's perspective.

She understood that life would never end completely happily. There would always be mishaps made along the way. There would always be a price to pay.

But she also understood the important things, the things she had overlooked. She understood the big picture.

Inside her house, she drops her bag with a sigh. It feels like forever since she had been home and actually been happy to be there.

Tomorrow she will go to school. She will go to school and try her best, and work hard. She will live life to the fullest and never let it trample her down ever again.

She will be happy.

* * *

She had hardly been home for more than an hour when the door is knocked upon. She is brushing her teeth and sticks her head out of the bathroom, blinking owlishly at the door.

The knock comes again, more insistent this time.

"Just a minute!" she tries to yell but it only comes out as a faint gargle from around her toothbrush.

Hurrying, she cleans up and rushes to the door.

And freezes in utter astonishment when she opens it to find Ichigo.

It could have been a minute or just a mere second that she stood there looking at him. It could have been an hour or a moment. It could have been an eternity or an instant.

She couldn't tell if time froze or moved forward rapidly. All she knew was that a bomb could have gone off and she wouldn't have noticed one bit.

She remembers finally how to breathe. "Kurosaki-kun…"

He looks at her and the look he gives her makes her throat feel tight and raw. It makes her feel wonderful and horrible at the same time.

"You're home," he says. "At last."

He opens his arms and obligingly, happily, she goes to him.

* * *

"Kurosaki-kun," she says and it feels like she will never grow tired of saying his name. "Have you been looking for me?"

His eyes slide to the window, hands in his pockets. Except for when she had first opened the door, he has not looked at her once. "I have been. I thought you needed some time alone but you never came back, so I went looking for you. To…to make sure everything was okay."

"Why didn't you come by here?"

"I did."

Orihime frowns, confused. "When?"

"Everyday."

"Everyday? But I never saw-"

"I didn't knock at first but then you disappeared altogether. So I started knocking. Where did you go?"

"Somewhere," Orihime says evasively. She doesn't know what Ichigo would think if he knew where she had gone and what she had done. That small selfish part of her didn't want to share it either. Ryuuken and what he had given her was her's to keep in her heart and no one else's.

"You look different," he comments suddenly.

Orihime smiles at that. "Ifeel different."

"…I see."

At his words, she glances piercingly at him. She can feel _something_, like the day Ichigo fought Yammy and was defeated. Something dark and heavy. "Is everything alright, Kurosaki-kun?"

"Yes," he says. Then, "No. I…"

And he looks at her, finally looks at her, and in his eyes she sees exactly what she had seen in herself weeks ago.

And suddenly the pieces all fall steadily into place to form one big picture and Orihime _understands._

Ichigo hadn't stopped looking her in the eye because he blamed her for Ishida's death. It was because he blamed _himself_. He had made an oath to protect everyone and bring them all home safely. He had been unable to hold that oath and now…now...

Inside his heart Ichigo has a splinter.

"Oh, Kurosaki-kun," she sighs.

"I," he's choking, crumbling, sinking under the weight of his guilt. "I wanted to say that…that…"

She goes to him then and he doesn't protest when she wraps her arms around him.

Forgiveness was the thing he needed and she relinquishes it without qualm. He is needy, needy; the poor star-eyed boy who believed he could save the world and everyone in it. Now he needs to become a man and realize that one person cannot save the world, that Superman does not exist. He must realize that sacrifices must sometimes be made and they are not always his to make.

As he shudders in her embrace, she smiles a small mysterious smile. She will help him remove his splinter, like Ryuuken did for her, and then she will help heal his wound. Together.

"I forgive you."

* * *

When she dreams, she dreams of Ishida.

_- Fin. -_


End file.
